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To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

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Cannes 2016, Un Certain Regard: Apprentice, by Boo Junfeng

Aiman, a 28-year-old correctional officer, is transferred to a maximum security prison. He strikes up a friendship with Rahim, who is revealed to be the chief executioner of the prison, and one of the world’s most prolific. Can Aiman overcome his conscience and a past that haunts him to become the executioner’s apprentice?

SINGAPORE: Boo Junfeng’s sophomore feature Apprentice did not come away completely empty-handed when it failed to pick up an award at the recent Cannes Film Festival.

Following its premiere in the progressive Un Certain Regard section of the festival, where it received positive feedback from film critics and a standing ovation, the prison drama also got picked up for distribution in the UK and Ireland.

Arrow Films, a multi-platform distributor of feature films and TV series, picked up the distribution rights to the film in these markets after being “totally struck by director Boo Junfeng’s power and skilful execution”, according to Arrow’s acquisition director Tom Stewart.

This is yet another feather in Apprentice’s cap, adding on to a packed international theatrical release schedule that includes Poland, Mexico, Turkey, Greece and Hong Kong. Boo’s tale about the relationship between a young correctional officer and the chief executioner of a prison opened in France on Wednesday and is scheduled to hit Singapore cinemas at the end of this month.

“The positive reviews so far have been very helpful.” Boo told Channel NewsAsia. “I'm very happy the film will be seen in cinemas in all these territories. I’m especially thrilled that my friends in the UK will be able to see the film in theatres.”

He revealed that a US theatrical release is also being worked on.

Boo is touted as one of Asia’s fastest rising directorial talents. Apprentice is the follow-up to his critically acclaimed debut Sandcastle and is a Singapore/Germany/France/Hong Kong/Qatar co-production. Shot in both Singapore and Australia, the film is an international collaborative effort with French cinematographer Benoit Soler and British production designer James Page.

Who Made It? Boo Junfeng, whose first movie "Sandcastle" appeared at Cannes’ Critics’ Week in 2010.

Why It Might Be Great: Junfeng is one of Asia’s fastest rising directorial talents. The morbid prison drama explores the relationship between the prison’s chief and a young correctional officer. The dynamic between the two should be intriguing due to the casting of veteran Malaysian actor Wan Hanafi Su opposite rookie Fir Rahman. The film is also gathering financial support from countries over the world.

What’s It Doing at Cannes? Junfeng’s debut feature "Sandcastle" was the first Singaporean film to be invited to the International Critics’ Week at Cannes. Given that "Apprentice" is his follow up, it shouldn’t be a huge surprise to see his name again.

When Can I See It? If you live outside of the U.S., you are in luck, because Luxbox just picked up the film for international distribution. In addition, it has been acquired for French release by Version Originale Condor and for distribution in Hong Kong by Bravos Pictures. No U.S. distribution has been confirmed.

Singapore death penalty under the spotlight as hangman film stirs emotions at Cannes

Before he made his new film about the death penalty, Boo Junfeng sat down to tea with some of Singapore’s retired hangmen.

He also talked to the priests and imams who helped condemned prisoners make their last walk to the gallows.

And most difficult of all, the young filmmaker spent years trying to reach through the curtain of shame to families who had lost fathers and sons to the hangman’s rope.

But it was only after Boo, whose film was to premiere at the Cannes film festival Monday, met one particularly “humane” executioner that he had an epiphany.

He realised that no movie has ever dealt with the whole horrible business from the perspective of the man who pulls the lever.

“I had already started to write [the film] but after I met the first hangman I couldn’t write for three months. What completely threw me was how much I enjoyed his company,” said Boo.

“He was not like I thought. He was likeable, charismatic, grandfatherly jocular and open about what he did. He took pride in the almost caring way he looked after the prisoners trying to make it as humane as he could, and I realised how difficult that was.

“He really shook up my ideas and forced me to rethink everything.”

So Boo took his film - he toiled over for five years -- one step further.

For Apprentice has a shocking twist. It is the story of a young man who ended up learning the executioner’s trade from the man who opened the trapdoor on his own father.

More surprising still is the intensity of the almost father-son relationship that develops between the young prison guard and the hangman.

“He is in some ways searching for his father,” Boo said. “And in doing that he finds this man. What I was going for was human truth. I didn’t want to make it an activist film.”

The death penalty is nevertheless a hot political issue in Singapore and in neighbouring Indonesia, particularly when foreigners have fallen foul of strict anti-drug smuggling laws.

The execution of seven foreigners in Bali last year - including two Australians and a mentally ill Brazilian - sparked an international outcry, and several others, including a British woman and a Frenchman, are still on death row there.

Boo said he began his research with the book Once a Jolly Hangman which features Darshan Singh, Singapore’s chief executioner for nearly 50 years who once executed 18 men in one day.

Its British author Alan Shadrake was arrested the morning after the book’s Singapore launch in 2010 and was held for a month in Changi prison for insulting the country’s judiciary.

He had criticised the way he claimed the death penalty was disproportionately applied to the poor, while well-connected criminals and wealthy foreigners escaped the noose.

Boo shot the prison scenes in disused prisons in Australia to avoid controversy in the tiny city state, where an estimated 95 per cent of the population still support the death penalty.

“It would have been easy to make a film about the death penalty itself, but it’s much bigger than that. I learned so much about the value of human life” from making the movie.

Boo, 32, one of a new wave of talented Singapore filmmakers, said his friends who are against the death penalty “may be disappointed by the film”, which is showing in the Certain Regard section at Cannes.

“I took myself out of the comfort zone to address the issue from a different point of view. I don’t have a view myself. Because the humanity behind the issue is so much more complex,” [No, it isn't. - DPN] said Boo, whose semi-autobiographical first feature Sandcastle was a hit at the French festival in 2009.

“Apprentice took so long because I had so much to learn, so many things were beyond my experience and very few people really knew (about this world)... And unfortunately almost of them are not around” to tell the tale.

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Organizers of an anti-death penalty coalition say they have delivered over 56,000 petition signatures to New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, urging him to sign a bill to repeal the state’s capital punishment law.
Sununu has vowed to veto the bill, saying he stands with crime victims and members of the law enforcement community.
Before presenting the signatures, the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty held a news conference Thursday where family members of murder victims spoke in favor of repealing the death penalty.
The bill was passed by the House and Senate.
It is unclear whether they have a two-thirds majority of votes in both chambers, which is needed to override vetoes. Source: The Associated Press, May 17, 2018

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The high school junior accused of gunning down 10 students and teachers at a Santa Fe school is facing a capital murder charge - but he’ll never face the death penalty, even in Texas.
Though Dimitrios Pagourtzis was charged as an adult and jailed without bond, even if he’s found guilty he can’t be sentenced to death because of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And in the Lone Star State, he can’t be sentenced to life without parole as the result of a 2013 law that banned the practice for minors.
“In Texas, after the Supreme Court’s decision, they passed a law that basically says that it’s a life sentence if you’re under 18 at the time of the crime,” said attorney Amanda Marzullo, executive director of Texas Defender Services. “The Court has said that it is cruel and unusual to execute an individual who is under 18 at the time of the offense.”
The Santa Fe High School student admitted to the mass shooting that killed 10 and wounded 10 others early Friday, according to court documents.…

31 years ago, on May 20, 1987, just before midnight, I was sitting in the witness area of the Mississippi Gas Chamber watching someone die in front of me. His name was Edward Earl Johnson.
I am both sad and glad that Edward’s final two weeks, right up to his agonising death, were recorded in Paul Hamann’s extraordinary BBC documentary Fourteen Days in May. Sad, because from time to time I find myself forced to relive that horror, when I watch the film at some public event; glad, because at least Edward’s senseless death has had positive repercussions – the film inspiring many to take up the battle for people in his precarious predicament.
Yet it irks me beyond measure that people who should know better use their position of power to prognosticate that the justice system never executes the innocent. For example, in a case called Kansas v. March, in 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia loudly proclaimed that there is not “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a…

How much does the public have a right to know about how the state of Indiana executes people?
It is a question that, effectively, strikes at the heart of capital punishment. And it's the issue in a 4-year-old case in Marion Circuit Court that started with a public records request by Washington attorney A. Katherine Toomey to the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC).
"If we win ... the Indiana public will know more about one of the most consequential areas of decision making that the state of Indiana engages in," attorney Peter Racher said in an interview.
The state, however, sees it as contrary to a state law limiting what the public can see pertaining to executions. The law was controversial because of how it passed. After midnight on the final day of the 2017 legislative session, it was added to a budget bill, two pages out of 175.
"The budget is now a death penalty bill," Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said at the time. "There's been no public…

The lawyers fighting the death penalty ordered for a former Northmont High School student want the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its affirmation of the sentence and scheduling of the execution.
Austin Myers' lawyers said in a motion filed this morning that they want the state's highest court to overturn the conviction and call a new trial "or in the alternative that his sentence be modified to life without parole."
Myers, 23, is still apparently the 2nd youngest on Ohio's death row 3 1/2 years after being sentenced for the murder of childhood friend Justin Back, 18, of Wayne Twp., Warren County.
Last Thursday, the court affirmed the death penalty for Myers, for the stabbing death of Back at his home outside Waynesville in January 2014.
The execution was scheduled for July 20, 2022 in the decision.
Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell was pleased with the 7-0 ruling by the state's highest court.
"The 7-0 decision is always something you like to se…

Defendant claims firefighters didn't try hard enough to extinguish blaze
The nanny responsible for killing 4 members of a family in an arson appeared in court in eastern China on Thursday to appeal her death sentence.
Mo Huanjing, nanny of the family of Lin Shengbin, pleaded guilty to starting the fire. But she said during the appeal at Zhejiang High People's Court that "the penalty in the original ruling was extremely heavy".
"The tragedy wasn't the result I wanted to see," she added. She said the efforts of firefighters were flawed. And she confessed to her offense during the initial interrogation, which could be regarded as a reason to earn a more lenient sentence.
Wu Pengbin, her lawyer, told China Daily that some firefighters and employees of the property management department of Lin's apartment attended the hearing as witnesses at his urging.
"I wanted them to show what they were doing at the time to the court, as I, with my client, thoug…

(CNN) - An Australian woman has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Malaysian court overturned an earlier acquittal of drug smuggling charges.
According to CNN affiliate Sky News, a three-judge panel unanimously threw out the previous ruling in 54-year-old Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto's case.
The grandmother and mother of four was arrested in December 2014 while transiting through the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Shanghai to Melbourne, according to another CNN affiliate, SBS News.
She was found in possession of 1.1 kilos (2.4 lb) of crystal methamphetamine and faced a mandatory death penalty under Malaysia's draconian drugs laws.
Exposto claimed she had no knowledge of the drugs in her bag and had been scammed by a boyfriend she met online.
According to SBS, Exposto's lawyers said she had gone to Shanghai to file documents in relation to her boyfriend's retirement from service in the US army. When she left China, Exposto claimed she was handed …

To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Concerns about Texas' dwindling lethal injection supplies coupled with questions about the age of the drugs have some advocates wondering whether the state is prepared to humanely carry out its recent uptick in scheduled executions.
Texas currently has 8 death dates and 9 doses of its execution drug - compounded sodium pentobarbital - for use in the Huntsville death chamber. What's more, a string of contradictory records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice raises questions about whether some of those doses could be 3 years old, far older than previously reported and old enough that experts worry it could increase the chances of a "torturous" execution.
"The older the drug the greater the likelihood of a botched execution. Period," said Maurie Levin, a death penalty lawyer with experience in lethal injection litigation. "It becomes contaminated, corrupted, impotent, and all of those things can lead to a torturous execution."
In response …

Texas executed Juan Castillo, who said he was innocent, for 2003 San Antonio murder
A Texas death row inmate was executed Wednesday — his 4th execution date in a year. Though advocates and his attorneys insisted on Juan Castillo's innocence, he lost all his fights in court and was put to death for a 2003 San Antonio murder.
Juan Castillo was put to death Wednesday evening, ending his death sentence on his 4th execution date within the year.
The 37-year-old was executed for the 2003 robbery and murder of Tommy Garcia Jr. in San Antonio.
The execution had been postponed three times since last May, including a rescheduling because of Hurricane Harvey.
Castillo's advocates and attorneys had insisted on his innocence in Garcia’s murder, pleading unsuccessfully for a last-minute 30-day stay of execution from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott after all of his appeals were rejected in the courts.
The Texas Defender Service, a capital defense group who had recently picked up Castillo’s cas…

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.